Why Women Are Choosing Holidays That Hurt

And why I postponed mine for years

I postponed hiking the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu for years.

There were practical reasons not to go. Financial pressure. Work changes. The longest time I’d ever been away from my children. The guilt. The fear. The “what ifs.” As mums, as women, as partners – we are so good at putting ourselves last. Turns out, I wasn’t alone in that delay and I’m also not alone in what happened when I finally stopped waiting for the perfect moment and just went. Here’s what the research is now confirming – physically challenging adventure travel doesn’t just tick a bucket-list box. It changes you and women – particularly women in their 40s and 50s – are leading one of the biggest travel shifts of 2026.

The rise of the ‘Darecation’

BBC Travel recently reported on what they’re calling the “darecation” – holidays deliberately designed to push you to your physical and mental limits. It sounds extreme. But the data behind it is impossible to ignore.

Pinterest identified darecations as one of their top travel trends for 2026, reporting a 75% increase in searches for adventure tourism. Sports travel insurance provider SportsCover Direct has seen a 182% increase in travellers taking out sports cover over the past two years, with the strongest growth in trekking, mountaineering and endurance travel.

At the extreme end of this trend, you have events like the World’s Highest Marathon – a 42km race that begins on the world’s highest volcano in Chile, where participants first climb for 11 hours in -30°C temperatures just to reach the start line. One of the five runners who made it there was a 47-year-old woman named Sara Storey. She said:

“I want people to see what an ordinary 47-year-old woman can do when she puts her mind to it.”

But here’s the thing – you don’t have to be running a marathon on a volcano for challenge travel to be meaningful. The shift isn’t really about extreme sport. It’s about something much more fundamental.

It’s not about the physical challenge. It’s about what’s on the other side of it.

British mountaineer Gavin Bate, who works in adventure travel, told the BBC:

“We are living in a world where we understand the benefit of a connectedness with nature. Many people working in the outdoor adventure sector are experiencing a tsunami of people coming to engage with these activities for mental health reasons.”

That tracks with everything I’ve witnessed hosting and participating in women’s adventure trips. Overseas adventure travel isn’t just about ticking off destinations. It’s about personal growth. It’s about resilience. It’s about rediscovering who you are beyond your roles. Here’s the unexpected part – the part nobody warned me about. When I finally went to Peru, my family grew too. My kids became more independent. More capable. More confident. They learned they could do hard things. Just like I did.

Women’s adventure travel isn’t selfish. It’s expansive.

Sports psychologist Dr Josephine Perry, who works with endurance athletes, puts it well – the ultimate gain from challenge travel “is not speed-related metrics – it’s about how cool the course was, what you saw along the route and the stories and adventures you bring back.”

Nobody comes home from the Andes and tells you about elevation gain in metres. They tell you about the moment they crested a ridge and the Sacred Valley opened up below them. They tell you about the woman in their group who hadn’t done anything like this in twenty years – and was the first one to reach the top, or the one who was 70 and doing her first ever proper hike!

Why trekking in the Andes is the perfect ‘Darecation’ for Australian women

Trekking in the Peruvian Andes delivers everything that makes challenge travel transformative – without requiring you to be an elite athlete or spend 11 hours climbing a volcano in a blizzard.

• Altitude that demands respect. Cusco sits at 3,400m above sea level. The trails push higher. Your body works harder. Your breath is shorter. You feel genuinely, undeniably alive in a way that’s hard to replicate anywhere else.
• Scenery that earns its reputation. The Sacred Valley, ancient Inca ruins, highland passes, cloud forest, Machu Picchu itself. The Andes aren’t just a backdrop – they’re the whole point.
• A challenge that’s genuinely achievable. Trekking in the Peruvian Andes is accessible to women with a reasonable level of fitness and a willingness to prepare. It’s hard. It’s supposed to be. But it’s also deeply doable – and that’s exactly where the magic lives.
• Cultural depth you can’t get from a bus window. The communities, the food, the history, the living Andean culture – walking through it is a completely different experience to driving past it.

There is rarely a perfect time to prioritise yourself. Sometimes you have to create it.

Why doing it with the right women makes all the difference

There’s a reason challenge travel is booming in the group format. The UTMB World Series – one of the world’s leading organisers of trail running events – has grown its annual participation from 50,000 in 2022 to 170,000 today. Most of those participants aren’t elite athletes. They’re committed amateurs who’ve decided that ordinary life isn’t quite enough.

What they’re seeking isn’t just the physical challenge. It’s the shared experience. The sense that you’re not doing this alone.

That’s exactly what a small-group women’s adventure trip is designed to deliver. Not a coach tour of 40 strangers. A small group of like-minded Australian women, moving through the journey together – pushing themselves, laughing, struggling and coming home changed.

Not quite ready to book a trip? Stay in the loop.

If this is landing somewhere but you’re not ready to commit to a trip just yet – that’s completely okay. The best thing you can do is stay connected.

I send semi-regular emails to a community of Australian women who love adventure travel – trip updates, destination guides, packing tips, honest stories from the road and the occasional early-bird offer before spots go public.

No spam. No overwhelm. Just the good stuff, when it matters.

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If Machu Picchu is sitting quietly in your heart…

The Andes Adventure – Cusco and Beyond is a small-grouP trip to Peru departing April 2027.

This isn’t a sightseeing tour. It’s an adventure built for people who are ready to do something that most only ever talk about. You’ll trek at altitude, explore the Sacred Valley, experience living Andean culture and stand somewhere that will genuinely take your breath away – in every sense.

From AUD $6,700 twin share and AUD $7,900 solo

Find out more and secure your spot

If this resonates, you’re not alone and you don’t have to keep waiting for the right moment.